A customer looking through the store window, called 911 after seeing a gunman point a pistol at two other people. Four officers were sent to the location. Once they arrived, three of the suspects tried to get away via the store’s back room. Seeing that the third suspect was unarmed, Cuevas ran towards the front door. He collided with one of the officers, and was shot, on his way to safety. “Mr. Cuevas, in an understandable effort to get away from the gunman as fast as possible, ran straight into the officer,” said NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly. “[They] became entangled at which point, we believe, the officer accidentally discharged his weapon with one round entering Mr. Cuevas’ left shoulder.”

One of the suspects, Christopher Dorsey, 17, surrendered to cops; another, Ernesto Delgado, 28, left the store pretending to have been held hostage by one of the gunman. The cops didn’t buy his story.

An eyewitness called the incident an “honest mistake,” since the cops were “frightened as they were patrolling.”

Cuevas was hit in the left shoulder, and was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital. According to his aunt, he had been working at the store for a few months to make money to support his 3-year-old daughter, living in the Dominican Republic.

The officer who shot him has been placed on administrative leave, pending the completion of an investigation.